Tag Archives: bids and proposals

Limitations on Subcontracting and GAO Bid Protests

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GAO bid protests regarding a competitor’s compliance with the applicable limitation on subcontracting can be difficult to win.

As the GAO held in a recent bid protest decision, unless the competitor’s proposal “on its face” should have led the procuring agency to recognize that the limitation on subcontracting would be violated, the agency is free to assume that the offeror intends to comply.  Of course, as was the case in the recent decision, it doesn’t hurt the protested company to specifically state that it will comply with the limitation on subcontracting.

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Past Performance: When Does An Affiliate’s Performance Count?

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A bidder on a government contract opportunity may rely on the past performance of an affiliated company–but only when the bidder’s proposal demonstrates that the resources of the affiliate will be provided or relied upon for contract performance.

This rule was recently at issue in a GAO bid protest decision, in which the GAO held that the agency improperly credited a joint venture with the past performance of affiliated companies, even though the joint venture’s proposal did not indicate that those companies would play a role in contract performance.

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Contractor Doesn’t Use Excel, Gets Booted From Competition

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A prospective contractor was kicked out of a competition for submitting its pricing in PDF format, instead of in Microsoft Excel files, as called for in the solicitation.

In a bid protest filed by the excluded offeror, the GAO held that the procuring agency properly deemed the offeror unacceptable for failing to use Excel.

Somewhere, Bill Gates is smiling.

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Subcontracting Ambiguity Results in Proposal Downgrade

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In a recent case, a federal court held that a procuring agency properly downgraded an offeror’s proposal because the proposal was ambiguous as to how much of the contract work the offeror intended to subcontract.

According to the Court, even though the amount to be subcontracted was small in any event, the ambiguity meant that the procuring agency reasonably questioned whether the offeror understood the requirements of the solicitation.

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GAO: Incumbent Contractor Not Entitled To Past Performance “Extra Credit”

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An incumbent contractor was not entitled to receive a higher past performance score than its competitor simply by virtue of having performed the incumbent contract, according to the GAO.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the procuring agency reasonably assigned the incumbent contractor the same past performance score as its competitor, and was not required to give the incumbent additional credit under the solicitation’s past performance evaluation factor.

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Price Reasonableness vs. Price Realism: The GAO Explains The Difference

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Price reasonableness and price realism are both benchmarks against which a procuring agency may evaluate an offeror’s price, but price reasonableness and price realism–though they are often confused for one another–are not the same thing.

As the GAO explained in a recent bid protest decision, one of the terms involves consideration of whether an offeror’s price is too low, whereas the other evaluates whether the price is too high.  The distinction is particularly important for fixed-price procurements, in which the question of whether pricing is too low is not one the procuring agency is always required to ask.

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GAO: Agency Discussions Need Not Include “New” Weakness

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In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that an agency did not fail to provide an offeror with meaningful discussions about an evaluated weakness in the offeror’s staffing approach because the aspect of the staffing plan deemed to be a weakness was introduced in the offeror’s final proposal revision, or FPR.

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